Topic: flood songs

[Rivers]

I believe it was the success of Bessie Smith's song that prompted the record companies to get Lemon and Bob to pen their flood songs.

[lindy]

I'm briefly reviving this thread because of the first post, which quotes John Barry's book about the amount of water moving down the Mississippi in 1927. Please compare that with the following quote from the Associated Press, published today:

"Around 10 a.m. on Sunday, according to officials from the Army Corps of Engineers, the river broke the record elevation set here during the flood of 1927, rising to 56.3 feet, 13 feet above flood stage and 1.2 feet below the predicted crest on Thursday. It was flowing by at a rate of nearly 17 million gallons a second, which is the highest rate it is likely to reach in its entire race down to the Gulf of Mexico."

Good day to pull out and play some flood song CDs, or play the ones you know yourself . . . and pray that the levees hold this time.

Lindy

[Gumbo]

1 cubic foot is 7.5 gallons so 17 million gallons is 2.26 million cubic feet. so i guess they must be measuring in a different place to the opening quote on page 1

Either way it's a powerful lot of water.

[misterjones]

Though he likely meant them only in a metaphoric sense, Bob Dylan has written a few 1927 flood-inspired songs:

Crash On The Levee (Down In The Flood)
High Water (For Charley Patton)
The Levee's Gonna Break

One unreleased song is rather funny, as it's meant to be a parody of a blues song.  It's called "Big Flood" (aka "Tupelo").

[Gumbo]

Lonnie Johnson has another: Floodwater Blues from 1937

[Richard]

I'm surprised I have beat dj on this one  good old CBW did two versions of Flood Water Blues in 1936, totalling 3 takes - work that out !

[mr mando]

As Bob Dylan has been mentioned, it's probably OK to also mention Randy Newman's "Louisiana 1927".

More songs about floods from the repertoire that's usually discussed here would be:

Flood Water Blues Parts 1 and 2 - Casey Bill Weldon
Flood Water Blues - Lonnie Johnson
The Flood of 1927 - Elders McIntorsh & Edwards
Floating Bridge - Sleepy John Estes
Story of the Mighty Mississippi  - Ernest Stoneman
High Water Flood Blues - Carl Martin